1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for comparing and merging multiple documents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many document processing and editing programs provide a compare feature to allow an author to compare a previous version of a document with a current version of the document opened in the document processing program, such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, etc. Certain document editing programs allow the user to view differences between two documents and select the content to use, i.e., the content from the currently opened document or the content of the selected document compared with the currently opened document. After accepting or rejecting modifications to the base document from the compared document, the user may then save the merged or aggregate document produced using this comparison operation as a new version of the previously opened version of the document.
In certain group editing environments, authors may check out a version of a master document and then modify that document. A master author, usually the one that controls the master document, may review the modifications to the master document in the separate author documents and select differences from the separate author documents to include in a new version of the master document.
There is a need in the art for improved techniques for comparing and merging documents.